PM triumphs in Washington; hapless Libs sink at home
This was the main requirement from the meeting. For Albanese, it was the essential condition. It means that in one meeting Albanese has dispatched nine months of criticism that he couldn’t manage the alliance, wouldn’t be accepted by Trump and had compromised our most crucial partnership. The victory for Albanese is immense, domestically and strategically.
In domestic terms, Albanese has embedded his authority as our natural Prime Minister. Successful management of the US alliance has been a condition of such authority for the past 80 years. In strategic terms, Albanese now presides over a historic deepening of the alliance – via advancement of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine agreement, a joint US-Australia critical minerals agenda and a series of expanded investments in the US by our superannuation funds and more defence co-operation.
Decisions from this meeting along with Trump’s unqualified rhetorical endorsement of Albanese as PM will lay the foundation for another leap in the US-Australia partnership based on the Trump-Albanese concord. Albanese didn’t just survive this meeting, the essential condition defined by many analysts. The meeting became the occasion for a new chapter in the Australia-US story.
The paradox of Albanese takes another twist. The once fierce leftist warrior has set up his prime ministership to constitute a significant deepening of the US alliance in strategic and military terms. He doesn’t put it that way, but it’s exactly what’s happening. The scale of Albanese’s election victory gives him political command of the Labor Party and means the Labor Left is largely powerless in terms of meaningful protest.
The serial successes Albanese achieved rest on a singular decision taken by Trump – to back Australia under Albanese based on the overwhelming transactional balance sheet. Australia is not a high priority for Trump – yet he remains favourably disposed towards Australia and seems a believer in the narrative this country has cultivated about our historical fidelity towards the US.
Under AUKUS and the critical minerals agreement Albanese has offered a lot to Trump’s America, and the transactional deal-making has worked. Albanese was astute. This was always the calculation of Albanese and Kevin Rudd as ambassador and, while it took time, they are vindicated. The result is a win for Rudd – that’s right, a win for Rudd. The critical minerals deal didn’t fall from a clear blue sky. It has been landed after a long campaign from Rudd and the ties he has built everywhere but in the White House.
Trump praised Albanese as a “great prime minister” and said of Australia as an ally “there’s never been anyone better”.
This is a humiliation for the Coalition. The Albanese-Trump personal concord has left the Coalition discredited and outsmarted, having badly misread the dynamics of the alliance, having underestimated Albanese and Rudd, and having conducted shrill warnings for nine months about the multiple dangers and allegations about a precarious US-Australia relationship. Nearly everything they said now looks misconceived or plain wrong.
Albanese has taken a lot of risks with Trump but has prevailed. Consider the list: refusing any significant boost to defence spending, attacking Trump’s tariffs, turning against Israel, recognising a Palestinian state and pledging an expansion of economic ties with China. Moreover, while officials in the Pentagon had deep concerns about AUKUS, Trump has given it the presidential imprimatur.
Trump let Albanese off the hook on defence spending and agreed the tariffs on Australia were at the lightest level – he made no concession on tariffs and none was expected.
The strategic implications will infuriate Beijing. The AUKUS compact that it loathes is proceeding – with Trump even agreeing that AUKUS is a strategic deterrent against China – while the Australia-US critical minerals deal is entirely designed to combat Beijing’s massive control of critical mineral and rare earth global supply chains.
This is a defining statement of Australia’s serious and bipartisan national strategic interest.
Critical minerals are the fuel of the future, vital in smartphones, renewable energy, defence technology, magnets and batteries.
Signing the agreement, Albanese said: “This is an eight and a half billion dollar pipeline that we have ready to go.” Trump, typically, made the mad comment that in “about a year from now, we’ll have so much critical minerals and rare earths that you won’t know what to do with them”. Many experts, by contrast, judge the US to be 15 to 20 years behind China in this race.
It won’t be easy sailing from this point for AUKUS or the critical minerals compact. The Albanese government must deliver by 2027 the proposed $8bn facility in the west to support US nuclear submarines, a vital replenishment base for US naval projection into the region. On the point of maximum angst in this country, Trump made clear he would sell Australia the proposed Virginia-class submarines, contradicting the critics in this country who think they know more about what the US will do than does its President.
The anti-AUKUS brigade in this country won’t be halted. And Trump’s remarks won’t solve the problems of the US submarine production line. But support from the three governments – the US, the UK and Australia – in pushing the AUKUS agenda will reinforce the confidence of the Albanese government. Presidential approval from Trump is a decisive step. In case you haven’t noticed, that’s how America works. His message to the US Navy was “full steam ahead”.
At the media conference Trump delivered the stunning addendum about China: while backing AUKUS, he didn’t really think it would be needed to deter China. He said “we’ll be just fine” in terms of China and Taiwan. Trump doesn’t believe President Xi Jinping will invade Taiwan, an optimism in conflict with the Pentagon’s warnings.
The implication: Trump doesn’t want a war over Taiwan and doesn’t believe there will be a war. Trump intends to cut a deal with Xi – he wants deals, not war. So much for the talk a few months ago the Trump administration will press Australia for a commitment over Taiwan in relation to AUKUS. Albanese got that right by dismissing any such query.
Given Labor’s blunders with the resources sector and its ineptitude with state intervention, turning the critical minerals agenda into reality will be a daunting task. Can they do it? The timetable is fast, the government takes equity investment in projects and offers price guarantees.
In its response to the Trump-Albanese meeting, the Coalition sounded like a rabble. Grudging about the initiatives, it complained the meeting had taken too long to organise (that proved to be a plus in the end), that the delay was Rudd’s fault and that Trump’s comments meant Rudd had to go. The exchange, of course, revealed that Trump didn’t really know who Rudd was, let alone being obsessed by the abusive comments Rudd had made some years ago.
The Coalition has spent too long listening to the populist conservative media that made Rudd a whipping boy all year and implied his mere presence would doom any successful Trump-Albanese meeting. How is that looking? For this media, Trump was their hero; Albanese was their demon. They fantasised about Trump putting Albanese in his place and teaching him a lesson. Anybody believing them has been deceived, including the Coalition.
But the Coalition’s claim on Tuesday that the Australian government should now buckle at the knees and remove Rudd is beyond pathetic. It doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously on US issues. This meeting was a success for Rudd, who might have a role in facilitating a new industry for Australia.
As for Albanese, he has outfoxed the Coalition on the US alliance and Mr Trump. But the expectations are now huge.
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Anthony Albanese’s meeting with Donald Trump heralds his most successful day since winning the 2025 election. Albanese forged a personal connection with Trump and sealed the Australia-US partnership with head-of-government authorisation.